


Another Century and Another War

by Bouzingo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1930s Flashbacks, Bucky Cap AU, F/F, F/M, Genderqueer Character, Grief/Mourning, Hispanic Character, Jewish Character, M/M, More characters and relationships to come, Multi, Trans Female Character, Trauma, talks about the necessity of goodness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-02-19 02:10:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2370578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bouzingo/pseuds/Bouzingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sergeant Barnes loses Captain Rogers in World War Two, and crashes the Valkyrie into the Arctic. Years later, Bucky awakes in another century and in another war. Fragmented bits from his time wielding Steve's shield, and the struggles of finding a moral center that isn't Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU I've been working on for a long time. It's going to hew pretty close to the Avengers/Cap 2 storyline, the main difference being Bucky's the one who's throwing the shield. I'm not tagging any characters that haven't showed up yet, but expect heavy involvement from Sam and Natasha soon!
> 
> For the record, I headcanon a genderqueer and Jewish Bucky, a trans Peggy Carter, and I've reinstated Agent Hill's status as a Latina, even though this is an MCU story.

Bucky Barnes comes back deadeyed from shock and unable to look Peggy Carter in the face. He finds a bar, bombed out but still stocked, and proceeds to drink it dry. Steve’s shield is set beside him on the chair. It takes him longer than usual to get drunk, but by the time he’s managed intoxication, Peggy Carter is there, silent at the doorway.

“I tried to find him,” Bucky says. “Tried so hard. I always could before, don’t know why I can’t…”

“Sergeant Barnes, this wasn’t your fault,” Peggy says. Her voice sounds strained, like she’s been crying and she wants to cry some more, and Bucky doesn’t know if he can hear her like that without beginning to cry himself. She sits down beside him and he realizes his face is already wet.

“I was s’posed to take care of him,” he says. “I promised him when his mother died he wouldn’t be alone. Promised myself I’d look after him.”

“This was his choice. He wanted this desperately, regardless of the risks,” Peggy says tightly.

A broken noise leaves Bucky’s throat, and he feels himself shatter into himself as he finally begins to cry, furiously wiping at his eyes even as the tears stream down his cheeks. Peggy shushes him gently, her eyes wet, and hugs him. He pushes her away and wraps his arms around himself.

“I hate this war,” he finally chokes out. “It’s taken everything from me.”

“Not everything,” Peggy says fiercely. Her hands are on either side of his face, and he doesn’t mind. “Not your life.”

“What have I got to go back to after this?” Bucky says. “I’ve got no steady job, no school, no girl, all right? It was just me and Steve. And then it was me and Steve and you, but I know you're not interested in me if you haven't go him. I couldn’t even find his body.”

“Pour me a drink,” Peggy says. Bucky obliges, and if she notices his hands are shaking, a bad characteristic for a sniper, then she doesn’t say anything.

He’s sober in less than ten minutes, and walking towards his death with Peggy. They don't kiss before the mission, or at any time during. Her voice is the last voice he hears though, before the cockpit fills with ice water and before he succumbs to extreme cold, shield at his feet.

* * *

 

Bucky Barnes wakes up on an operating table, his lower body encased in ice, cold stabbing into his nerves like so many knives. He wakes up screaming for Steve, screaming because the pain is too much and he thought he died righteously, thought he wouldn't be punished for his sins if he made his death a good one.

"Sergeant Barnes, it's all right," someone in a mask says. He hates men in masks, hates that he can't move his arms, and screams into the masked man's face because he can't do anything else. "God. Go get something to calm him down."

A needle goes into his arm and he groans because this must be hell, this must be how he'll spend eternity, trapped on a table and getting operated on forever. He murmurs the old prayer his mother used to sing him in a language he's nearly forgotten, while the pain from the ice numbs a little.

"He speaking Yiddish?" someone whispers. "I did not know that abut him."

"It's a prayer for the dead," someone else says, and there's a hand on his shoulder. "Sergeant Barnes, I don't know if you understand, but you're not dead. I know this is painful, and I am sorry you woke up like this. But we're here to help you. We're getting you out of the ice. Do you understand?"

Bucky can barely breathe. He hears his own heartbeat in his pounding head and black spots his vision. Someone presses a mask on his face and he tries to jerk away, because he hates men in masks, but air, cool and seductive, fills him and he can breathe.

"There you go," says the woman beside him. "Breathe in, breathe out. Okay."

The hand on his shoulder is a comfort, an anchor. Nobody ever clasped his shoulder in the HYDRA facility, where there was only pain, and cruelty and...

"Breathe, Sergeant Barnes," the voice urges. "We're going to get you out, but you have to breathe. We're trying not to hurt you."

"Jesus," someone mutters. "Can't we get him a sedative?"

"Wouldn't work with his metabolism," the voice says. "Where are we on the extremities?"

"Hands are nearly out. No frostbite. Can't tell with the feet, but so far we've been lucky. Talk him down, Hill. He's peaking again."

"Hey Sergeant," the warm voice says. "You're doing great with the breathing, but can you talk?"

"What's happening," Bucky rasps into the mask.

"Someone found you, Sarge. We got you out of the ice," she says. "Do you remember the plane crash?"

"Schmidt... the missiles," Bucky says, and focuses on his breathing for a minute, because _fuck did they deploy is everyone dead is it his fault._

"You don't have to worry Sarge. HYDRA went down with that plane. The world is safe from them."

"Good," Bucky whispers. the pain's not so bad now. Whatever was in that syringe was actually effective.

"Mind if I ask you some questions, Sarge?"

"Shoot," Bucky says, focusing his eyes on the person speaking, _Hill_. She's got the medical mask on, but he can see her brown eyes and dark skin aand black hair done in a long braid down the side, and her eyes have a spark in them that reminds him of Steve. Steve's dead.

"How's that anaesthetic working?"

"Pretty swell," Bucky says, willing the thought of Steve falling from the train out of his head.

"Do you smell anything weird? Burnt toast, for instance?"

"No. Should I be?"

"No. No, that's good that you're not smelling that. Means your brain is okay."

"Oh," Bucky says.

"Right arm's out," someone mutters. "See if he can move his fingers."

"Sarge, you hear that?"

"Yeah," Bucky says, and wills his damn hand to move. He manages to lift his fingers. The effort is monumental, but the hand on his shoulder squeezes slightly.

"There you go, well on your way."

"Did they find Steve" Bucky asks, an is met with a silence that is not reassuring.

"His memorial's in Arlington," Hill says.

"You mean he's still _out there_ , he's still alone?" Bucky says, and his heart breaks, because he could deal with Stevie being dead, so long as he had a grave to visit, so long as Steve was buried with his folks, but...

"Sergeant, they spared nothing looking for Captain Rogers," is the promise. "The search went on for years. Everybody wanted to bring him home."

"Years?" Bucky asks, cold penetrating his insides again. "What do you mean by that?"

"Do not answer that," someone far off to the side says.

"How long have I been like this?" Bucky asks desperately. _How long has Steve been gone?_

"He's going to have to know sooner or later, Commander," Hill says frankly, and turns to Bucky. "Sergeant, it's been seventy years."

Bucky's heart stops, and so does his breathing. He passes out on the table and the only thing he can think is Steve's name, Steve's face.


	2. Chapter 2

Brooklyn is completely different but unsettlingly the same. Bucky avoids it for a few days after his initial visit, but he comes back. Beyond the skeleton of roads and bridges, there’s very little that he can recognize. His synagogue, or his parents’ synagogue anyway, is still here, and there’s a couple bars and dives that have stuck around in the seventy years since 1945. What little else he can recognize reminds him of Steve and that just hurts. He pulls his jacket over himself tighter and swallows the knot of tears in his throat.

He takes a subway to the New York Public Library, and one of the great achievements of this century so far slaps him in the face as soon as he walks in. There must be tens of thousands of books, and the computers promise the equivalent of millions more.

There’s a computer provided in the apartment that SHIELD rents for Bucky, and its interface is a little more user-friendly than the ones at the library, but Bucky figures it out and spends hours just sitting and reading, a pile of book for checkout beside him.

“We thought you would like the library,” a familiar, warm voice says, and Bucky looks beside him to see Hill. She’s not wearing the mask ( _obviously_ , Bucky thinks, but it isn’t that obvious) and she’s wearing glasses that are surely not necessary. She has a couple of folders pressed to her chest and looks for all the world like one of the harried college students that Bucky’s seen at the endless coffee shops in the city.

“You guys know everything about me, huh,” Bucky says, minimizing his browser. “Have you been monitoring me?”

“Yes,” Hill says frankly. “To be honest we’ve been worried about you. Your psychological evaluation was…”

“Worrying,” Bucky says with a mirthless smile. “Yeah, I got that. I’m sorry that I don’t feel the same way. Is there something you wanted?”

“There’s a threat that requires SHIELD’s attention,” Hill says. “We would benefit from your assistance.”

“Is that what’s in those folders?” Bucky asks. She nods. “Okay.”

“You’re not even going to ask what it is we’re looking for?”

“You opened with ‘I’m worried about your mental state,’” Bucky says with a wry smile, wishes his smiles could be anything more than sardonic, “So I’m assuming that whatever bee’s in SHIELD’s bonnet is cataclysmic enough that my mental state is not as important.”

“That’s barely what I meant,” Hill says, though she looks a little abashed. “We’re not pressganging you.”

“But you are asking me, and that’s enough,” Bucky says, and picks up his books. Hill hands him the files. “And for the record, I owe you one. Personally. You helped me, when I was on the table.”

“You remember that, huh,” Hill says quietly.

“Hell of a thing to forget,” Bucky says, and accepts the folders from her, lays them on top of his books about astrophysics and ethics. Looks like he’ll have to put off the reading ‘til later. He’s needed.

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s good to have you back Sergeant Barnes,” the shitty bureaucrat says. Bucky looks at him, wonders what Steve would have thought of him, and then decides it doesn’t matter what Steve would have thought in this instance. He doesn’t like him. 

Mildly discouraged by Bucky’s silence, the guy continues with a self-deprecating smile.

“I was there, when they took you out of the ice.”

“I remember,” Bucky says bluntly. He takes a sip from the fancy frozen coffee that came in the disposable cup with his name written on the side in loopy printing.

One thing he definitely likes about the twenty-first century is that there is a coffee shop on every corner and he’ll never have to drink hickory again. Another thing he definitely likes is that there’s about ten million ways to take coffee these days, and one of ‘em is milkshake.He always did have a sweet tooth, a curse in the 1930s but carelessly indulged in 2012.

“So, you _knew_   Captain Rogers,” Coulson says, and Bucky sighs, the coffee going bitter in his mouth.

“I know it’s been near a century for everyone else,” he says. “But I’ve only just lost him, and I don’t want to entertain any crackpot theories that have come up. Tread lightly.”

“Right. I… I just wanted to ask,” Coulson says, and spends a good minute choosing his words while Bucky realizes he must be a fan. “Was he how they say he was?”

Bucky thinks about all the things he’s seen about Steve on the internet, in the museums, in books, and shakes his head. Coulson looks anxious, like he’s got a childhood hinging on Steve being anything less than perfect, even remotely human. Bucky’s not going to waste memories of Steve’s horrid temper, or his five-decibel snoring, or how he’d run his damn mouth all the time on this guy.

“No,” Bucky says. “He was better.”

They spend the rest of the flight in silence, Bucky lost in memories.

 

* * *

 

 

_“You know you’re made of stars?” Bucky said with a smile while he traced the ribs jutting out on Steve’s skinny chest. Steve snorted. It was a warm day in September, and they’d lit just one stubby candle in the evening light._

_“You know you’re no good at pickup lines?” he laughed._

_“No, you are. Made of stars I mean. You got all the stuff you need for stars in your skin. Stars from when everything was new, when only the potential for us existed in the universe. That’s where we come from. Leftover stars,” Bucky said, and grinned brightly. “Had a real hard time believing all that ‘til I saw you.”_

_“You fucker,” Steve mumbled, but he’d been basking in Bucky’s gaze. “Do the dames know you’re such a scholar, Socrates?”_

_“Yeah, I’m whispering sweet nothings ‘bout nebulas on the dance floor, Stevie,” Bucky scoffed. “Kidding. It’s just you that gets to know my unabridged brilliance.”_

_“If that’s your brilliance unabridged,” Steve said, “then it’s a damn good thing you’re sweet.”_

_Bucky feigned hurt with a tremulous pout, and Steve laughed, rolling onto him._

_“Think it’s sweet you think I’m made of stars,” he said, kissing Bucky’s lips superficially. It was a lot softer than their usual kisses. Bucky was blushing, getting red like he did when they were this close. There was nobody to see them and Steve probably couldn’t see the pigment in his cheeks, but Bucky bet he could feel the heat under his lips._

_“Guess those pickup lines are working all right, after all,” Bucky said with a soft laugh._

_“Har har,” Steve said. “I can’t help that I’m a sucker for a pair of blue eyes and soft lips.”_

_They could have exchanged aggressive pleasantries for hours, as they had done before, for hours and hours. That night Bucky drew Steve close for another deeper kiss, and they didn’t exchange too many pleasantries for the rest of the evening._

 

* * *

 

 

“Good morning, Sergeant Barnes,” the redhead says. She’s small and she looks soft to the touch, but Bucky knows that looks don’t mean shit, especially in the army. She’s got two guns hidden on her person and those are just the ones that Bucky’s allowed to see.

“Good morning,” he says, sipping his coffee. “Hell of an aircraft carrier.”

“It’s only half an aircraft carrier,” she says with a smile that’s not patronizing or especially welcoming. “I’m Agent Romanov by the way.”

“I read your file,” Bucky says. “Pretty slim one. I’m guessing you wanted it that way, huh.”

“Secrets are my trade, Sergeant,” Natasha says, and god, she’s an interesting lady, isn’t she? Their conversation is paused however, by the appearance of someone even more interesting. Bruce Banner looks out of place and out of luck. Bucky’s sure that Natasha won’t think he’ll notice when she shifts into a more defensive stance.


	3. Chapter 3

"So if you're not Captain America, how come you're holding the shield?" Stark asks while they escort Loki back to the helicarrier in the plane that Natasha pilots. Bucky has decided he doesn't like Stark Junior at all. He wasn't even much a fan of Stark Senior, who was rich and cocky but at least respected Bucky as a soldier.

"It was given to me," he says. "I don't like your tone."

"You're going to have to get used to the disappointment. Captain America's best friend the inglorious bastard wasn't the one who was on the lunchboxes," Stark says flippantly. "I would know. Had all of 'em as a kid. By the way, kudos for sucker-punching the Norse trickster god, but he's kind of bleeding everywhere and it's your fault."

Bucky looks at the Aryan asshole who is indeed gushing blood from his nose, and shrugs. Wannabe gods of the Aryan assortment in Germany are a hair trigger for him. After everything he fought for and everything that was lost after he was committed to ice, he couldn't tolerate the insidious rhetoric this guy was spouting.

"Not one for talking. That's cool," Tony says. "I can always exchange zingers with Agent Romanov."

Bucky looks at Natasha and sincerely doubts it, just as the plane staggers to the side and his chest freezes up because he's _still afraid of going down and not waking up this time_.

"Don't know where this storm is coming from," Natasha says by way of explanation, just as a blond man in a red cape boards the plane and flies out, taking the prisoner with him. Tony's helmet folds over his face and he starts out. Bucky starts putting on a parachute, and Natasha turns around.

"Are you sure you want to go after them? Those guys are basically gods."

"Gods don't bleed," Bucky says grimly, and jumps out the plane.

* * *

 

Bucky always found it easy to argue, but this is too easy. It’s only when he finds himself in Stark’s face, hurling unkind words about his father that he would usually keep to himself, that he realizes he’s being manipulated. He turns to Fury, bristling and struggling to keep himself calm.

“This is what Loki wants,” he says. “He wants us divided before we can band together. This… this isn’t us. This is a distraction.”

“With all due respect, Sergeant…” Fury says, temple twitching, and then Natasha cocks her gun.

“Put down the scepter, Dr. Banner,” she says quietly, and no sooner does Bruce oblige than the Helicarrier is rocked by a shock. Bucky falls, and on the ground he takes a deep breath because this is too much like the train.

“Put on the suit,” he says to Tony, who nods shakily.

* * *

 

By the end of it, Bucky is shaking and twitchy in the Captain America costume. He wishes he were dead, instead of listening to Fury lecture to them about a man he didn't know and doesn't care too. The bloody Captain America cards just tip him over into a state where he can stand up and walk calmly to Maria, who has someone daubing at her temple.

"Are you going to be all right, Agent Hill?" he asks kindly. She nods, seems shook up more than anything and Bucky nods, then turns to Fury.

"Why are you so convinced that not a one of us would do the right thing unless blood was spilled?" he says, stuffing his shaking hands into the pocket. "You can guilt us like schoolkids until we sink into the ocean, or you can have a little faith, Commander Fury."

"Faith in what?" Fury asks levelly. "I barely know you, Sergeant Barnes. You've been nothing but belligerent to me, and we still don't know why you're carrying Captain Rogers' shield. You have done nothing to gain my trust."

"I don't need your trust to do the right thing. Right now, the right thing is stopping Loki, and whatever plans he's got," Bucky says, and buckles the helmet back over his head. "Who knows how to fly one of those planes?"

"I do," Hill says, and gets up, nodding at Fury. "He's right. I'm going with him."

"You two have no idea what you're dealing with," Stark says, looking up from the cards. Bucky looks at him, then at Fury with a raised eyebrow. Perhaps this was a show entirely for Stark's benefit.

"And neither do you," he says.

"Yeah, and? I'm not hijacking a plane because I don't know where Loki is going," Stark points out petulantly. "Unless you have a better idea, _Captain_. Or am I supposed to call you Sarge? Nobody's made that clear."

"Stark, think," Bucky says. "You're the smartest one in this place, or you like to think you are. Loki thought the same thing."

"Are you saying I'm like Loki?" Tony says. Fury snorts.

"I'm saying you could probably outsmart him," Bucky retorts, narrowing his eyes. "Where would you go, if you were him?"

"I don't know, full-tilt diva like that, probably wants a place full of people, like Hamburg, you know, but bigger. He wants flowers, parades, monuments built to the skies with his name plastered..." Tony trails off, and looks at Bucky, who hasn't quite put it together, but Maria makes a sound.

"He's going to New York," she says. Stark and Bucky are out of their chairs as soon as she says it.


	4. Chapter 4

"I've seen you in the field," Stark says. "And my opinion of you's changed."

"Your opinion of me doesn't mean a lot, but it's nice to know, Stark," Bucky says with a shrug. They're drinking in what's left of Stark Tower, only because Stark promised to show him the stuff he's developed for space exploration. Somehow they both got sidetracked, and Bucky's seeing what the upper limits of his serum go to when it comes to alcohol.

"My dad could never get a read on you. He thought you were a good man, but after that-" Stark makes a hand gesture Bucky expects he's supposed to understand. "I guess he never saw you shoot a man."

"What's your point," Bucky says.

"All that cheerful sidekick stuff? Cap's best pal and all that other shit? It was for the kids, wasn't it. You're a  killer, plain an simple, and you were only a good man when you had Steve Rogers to keep you honest," Stark says plainly. "Without him, you've got nothing keeping you good."

"Now, I could be wrong, but I thought Freudian analysis was outdated in '39. He back in vogue, Anthony?" Bucky smirks. "I do what has to be done in order to keep a good peace. And if you think that pulling a trigger to shoot a man in service of a genocidal maniac isn't good, you're right. I hate killing. I never wanted to fight."

"What do you mean, a good peace?"

"A peace that's not enforced through the silencing of thousands to benefit the peace of mind of a few," Bucky says seriously. "You can get quiet by telling someone to quit yelling, but it won't last. That's not what Steve wanted, and it's not what I want. You do what's necessary, not what's good. I've come to know the difference because I lived the whole of my life looking at good from the side of necessary. That was my moral code without Steve. Sometimes with Steve. And if you can't understand that, it's because you never had to make that choice."

Tony stares at him for a minute, then swears and pours them both another shot of vodka.

"You sure do talk when you want to, though," he says.

"I hate this century," Bucky says. "Long talk s about morality and fucking robots everywhere, when all I wanted was a drink."

"He didn't quiz you on truth, justice, and the American way every hour on the hour?"

"Steve?" Bucky says, and laughs hollowly. "No. Didn't have much more schooling than me. We weren't philosophizing anywhere near to the degree I gotta with you people."

"Bullshit," Tony says. "JARVIS, bring up Sergeant Barnes' official biography."

"Chapter twelve sir?"

"Naw, the colour insert of his book collection," Tony says with a twinkle in his eyes. "How much did books on astrophysics cost back in the Great Depression?"

"Reading and philosophizing aren't the same," Bucky says bluntly. "And most of those are library books I didn't return before I shipped off."

"Space age musta blown your mind."

"The one good thing about 2012 is NASA," Bucky concedes. "And the bastards in the White House are defunding that. And before you ask, the space program's out of my reach."

"At least let me introduce you to Jane Foster, she's incredible," Tony says.


End file.
